ENG NOTES.docx

ENGLISH ­ DRACULA 01/16/2013
ENG 1
The New Woman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman: “The Yellow Wallpaper”
DR. Silas Weir Mitchell
• U.S. physician
• The rest cure – For women with nervous conditions, called for complete rest, not engaging the mind,
Coerced feeding, complete isolation
• Women has become an object, she’s trying to be an important individual
Elements
Gothic
Claustrophobic
Constraints
Attic/Dungeons
Hauntings
Madness
Change in social structure
Symbols
Feminine
Wallpaper/pattern/writing
Patriarchy
House ENG 2
Rising action Climax Falling action resolution
Complication
Exposition denouement
• Jonathan Harker ­ A solicitor, or lawyer, whose firm sends him to Transylvania to conclude a real
estate transaction with Dracula. Young and naïve, Harker quickly finds himself a prisoner in the castle
and barely escapes with his life. He demonstrates a fierce curiosity to discover the true nature of his
captor and a strong will to escape. Later, after becoming convinced that the count has moved to
London, Harker emerges as a brave and fearless fighter
• Mina Murray ­ Jonathan Harker’s fiancée. Mina is a practical young woman who works as a
schoolmistress. Eventually victimized by Dracula herself, Mina is also the best friend of the count’s first
victim in the novel, Lucy Westenra. Mina is in many ways the heroine of the novel.
• Lucy Westenra ­ Mina’s best friend and an attractive, vivacious young woman. The first character
in the novel to fall under Dracula’s spell, Lucy becomes a vampire, which compromises her much­
praised chastity and virtue, and banishes her soul from the promise of eternal rest.
• John Seward ­ A talented young doctor, formerly Van Helsing’s pupil. Seward is the administrator of
an insane asylum not far from Dracula’s English home. Throughout the novel, Seward conducts
ambitious interviews with one of his patients, Renfield, in order to understand better the nature of life­
consuming psychosis. Although Lucy turns down Seward’s marriage proposal, his love for her remains • Arthur Holmwood ­ Lucy’s fiancé and a friend of her other suitors. Arthur is the son of Lord
Godalming and inherits that title upon his father’s death. In the course of his fight against Dracula’s
dark powers
• Van Helsing ­ A Dutch professor, described by his former pupil Dr. Seward as “a philosopher and
metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day.” Called upon to cure the ailing Lucy
Westenra, Van Helsing’s contributions are essential in the fight against Dracula.
• Mina and Jonathan use special language to communicate
• Mina takes everything and uses the typewriter
• Typewriter is a sign of liberation – the new woman
• Communication is key
• Dialogue taking place through the whole novel
• Jonathan is educating himself because he is going to Transylvania because it is uncharted territory
• Binary opposition: two opposing ideas
⇒ Civilized/uncivilized
⇒ Good/evil
• “Othering” – post colonial
• Blood stands for life, power, social status
• 1919 “ the uncaning” always familiar such as the home which becomes something unfamiliar
• Female vampires are very beautiful and desirable
• men are more cold, calculating
• Dracula is A sexual, blood is blood • Dracula need Jonathan so he doesn’t finish him off
• St Georges day foreshadows that the novel talks about goods against evil
ENG 3
• Section 2 takes place in England
• Lucy has 3 suitors – Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, Quincey Morris
• Lucy’s body starts to transform from one world to another
• Lucy is a unifying force but also a threat
• Lucy would like to marry all three men – foreshadows she may not have as much self control,
• Blood transfusion is a physical joining with lucy
• Arthur cant know that seward gave blood to lucy
Assignment
Choice of 5 different extorts that are mass media
Only one
2 stories, two pages, 600pages
due at the beginning of class the 28
I is accepted – support your point
Check course syllabus for outline
Page 67 ­ madness
He had to clear out some of them, exposing he may dispose of them the way he likes
He explained they give life to him, as if he is not already well alive
Food is a main theme foreshadowing how Dracula moves from the eastern part of the world to the western
Moments of insanity or madness
Represents the uncivilized
ENG 4 – January 18 th
• Still unsure about sanity of everyone
• This puts an end to if people are insane
• Jonathans journal proves that people are not insane but rather there is something out there – can now
believe in count Dracula
• Mina “ God help us all to bear our troubles” – even though there may be scientific knowledge we must
have faith outside of that • The zookeeper
­ The wolf (bezerker) killed Lucy
­ Dracula has a connections with animals
­ Bezerkers were unstoppable and uncontrollable warriors
­ Supports Lucys claim about the wolf
­ We see class distinction
ENG 6 – January 23
Shadows are the darker aspect of ourselves
Regressing aspect of the self
Wherever there is civilization there will be a transfer of disease
Journal at the corner of the screen – Diaries during this time period are extremely important
Looking through peoples journals, portions will be blacked out because they don’t want people to see those
things
Important to understand our history and where we come from
Mina looks paler – but no one seems to realize what has happened to her
Pages 236, 243 Mina looks paler
Mina pity’s the count
The boxes: According to Eastern European folklore, the Undead must rest in their native soil, what should
be their "final resting place."
When Dracula moves to England, he must take with him this bit of native soil; it allows him to travel &
establish himself in a foreign land.
Van Helsing seeks the coffins since, while at rest, Dracula is in a vulnerable state & easier to kill. th
The Demon Lover, Elizabeth Bowen – February 6 2013
• World war 1
• In ‘‘The Demon Lover’’ the main character, Mrs. Drover, confuses World War II with World War I.
Returning home to collect some personal belongings during the aftermath of a recent bombing, she
thinks of her long­dead fiance to the point where the reader does not know if this is a ghost story or
simply a story of one character's neurotic mental state.
• Mrs. Kathleen DroverThe story centers on the perceptions and actions of Mrs. Kathleen Drover.
When she finds a letter addressed to her in her abandoned London home, she thinks back to her
former nameless soldier­lover during World War I. She is keenly aware of her surroundings: the
atmosphere, weather, and particularly, a sense of strangeness. The letter lying on the table compels
her to imagine the various possibilities for how the letter got there in the first place.
• Dead air ; suffocating, stagnate
• Don’t know what is real or not
• Plot and Major Characters
• The essential plot elements of Bowen's story derive from medieval legends about a demon lover. Such
tales often tell of a young woman who, having pledged eternal love to a soldier departing for war,
marries another when her lover does not return. However, he eventually does come back, as a ghost or
a corpse, to avenge this infidelity, usually by abducting her. In "The Demon Lover" the protagonist, Mrs.
Drover, returns to her London home, which had been vacated during the bombing of the city by
Germany. There Mrs. Drover discovers a letter, dated the present day, composed by a lover from the
past who was presumed to have been killed in the previous world war. As a young woman, she had
sworn to love him forever, but eventually married another man. The letter recalls a meeting that they
had arranged long ago for this very evening. Overcome with dread at the thought of confronting her
former lover (alive or otherwise), Mrs. Drover leaves the house to hail a taxi. As the cab pulls away with
Mrs. Drover, the driver looks her in the eye, throwing Mrs. Drover into hysteria. Bowen does not reveal
exactly what Mrs. Drover saw, but many readers are inclined to believe it was the visage of her dead
lover.
ENG – The swimmer, John Cheever
• Modernism: a self reflection which explores the subject, setting is always realistic, latest things
• Post modernism: something we cant fix, EMPLOYS: irony, playfulness, lack humor, intertexuality
(referencing other texts), metafiction(not real)
• The swimmer is a post modern text
• Post modernism starts around the 1960s, and 1950s on ward • Neddy Merrill ­ The protagonist, who decides to go home from his friends’ house by swimming
through all the pools in his neighborhood. Neddy and his wife, Lucinda, enjoy a high social standing in
their affluent neighborhood. As he swims home, he loses his strength, and his friends begin saying
things that suggest that a great deal of time has gone by. When he arrives home, he finds his house
empty.
A journey – we learn he’s a partyer, youthful, promiscuous, good sense of humor, prankster, materialist (he
wealthy, lives in a wealthy area where everyone has pools– he crosses into public pool space and is not
welcome) January 28th 01/16/2013
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
By: Herman Melville
(P. 47)
∙ Bartleby performs task of a scrivener
o Clash between old and new
o Book is a book about reading texts
o Works in a law office writing legal documents
o Nothing is said about who Bartleby actually is
Trausendental Movement:
th
∙ Early 19 Century
o Movement that deals with philosophy, literature, and politics
o Response to increasing fact paced life due to consumerism, technology
o Stems from Ralph Emerson
o Putting selves against authority
∙ Opposition, resistance
∙ Trying to get back to nature, become one with nature, find self through nature
∙ “Who am I?”
Marxism:
∙ Political theory of no class division January 28th 01/16/2013
o No lower or upper class
o Sense of equality
∙ Focus on class hierarchy, oppressed rise up against oppressors
o Oppressed are blue collar/laborers
o Oppressors are the bourgeoisie, aristocracy
∙ Examining social conditions of the oppressed
In Text:
∙ Bartleby is resisting those making him do something
o Aka. His boss
∙ Title
o Wall Street has an image of people working like ‘zombies’
∙ Walk into work, do as told, leave work
∙ We are the laborers who make money for everyone else
∙ Gentleman giving story is unknown, broad representation of boss in that time period
o Singles out one man because Bartleby goes against the norm
∙ Doesn’t follow orders or direction
∙ He is considered odd
∙ Author states that Bartleby can’t be read, yet a short story is written about him
o He is an unreadable character
o Ambiguous in nature January 28th 01/16/2013
o Isolates self from others
∙ Feels he is special compared to the others and therefore deserves special attention/treatment
∙ Other 3 law servants
o Turkey—alcoholic, only works well in the morning before he starting drinking again
o Nippers—works well in afternoon, opposite to Turkey
∙ Nippers and Turkey complement each other, together they make one good worker
o Ginger Nut—a 12 year old boy sent to the office by his father so he won’t have to end up like his father
and be a driver, works for $1.00/week
∙ Set up between Bartleby and other servants
o Turkey and Nipper play off one another
o Bartleby does work in beginning
∙ As story progresses he refuses to do any work or to leave the office
∙ Stares at blank wall
∙ Blank wall is unreadable à like Bartleby
∙ Blank wall is a reflection of Bartleby, he tries to figure out who he is
∙ Story is a reflection of class hierarchy inside and outside of the office
January 30, 2013
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street Continued
By: Herman Melville
(P. 47) January 28th 01/16/2013
Existentialism:
∙ Thinking, acting, feeling human
∙ Individual
o We are responsible for giving meaning to our own lives
o Sense of disorientation caused by sense of a meaningless, absurd world
True Absurd:
∙ No meaning beyond what we give it
o Unbelievable, impossible, doesn’t make sense, out of the ordinary
∙ Ex. Monty Python
∙ Meaningless includes:
o Amorality—unfairness
∙ Bad things don’t happen to good people
∙ In text
o Bartleby is absurd, in continuous reference of “I would prefer not to”
o Can be looked at like a case study like Dracula, or biography strange autobiography
∙ First passage of text
o Story about narrator, all in his own perspective, even though main focus is on Bartleby
∙ Learn more about narrator through his experiences
∙ About narrator and his responses to Bartleby January 28th 01/16/2013
∙ Narrator repeatedly says ‘he is respond with passion’, ‘repeatedly pulling self back from becoming angry
or upset’
o Is about Bartleby
∙ No personal aspect of narrator throughout
o Little known about Bartleby and why he does what he does
∙ He is a mystery throughout entire story, but we learn about the narrator through how he reacts to
Bartleby
o Narrator is a push over
∙ Tolerate Bartleby’s refusal to work
∙ Tolerates Nippers, and Turkey’s poor work ethic
∙ He is a ‘door mat’ that everyone walks over
o Pg. 48, 2 paragraph
∙ He is lazy, tries to take easy way out of things, find route that will get him to his goal as easy and safe as
possible, despite if there is another route that may be more rewarding
∙ John Jacob Aster
∙ Immigrant to United States, that became extremely wealthy
o Never learn real names of employees
∙ Nippers, Turkey, Ginger Nut
∙ Possibly doesn’t care enough about them to remember their real names, uses nicknames based on
characteristics he as observed about them
∙ P. 49 top
o Narrator wants easy way of life as best
∙ Nicknames conferred upon by everyone else
∙ Quote about narrator (?) not being worried about everyone else in terms of them not having a lot of
money, but he is worried about himself not having money
o P.62 at bottom—author worries about money, its all about himself January 28th 01/16/2013
∙ Entire text really about narrator, and his affairs
∙ Money affairs, discussion about property for him
o Above Bartleby and his safety
o Narrator gains strength each time he buttons up his coat; attends to not be a pushover
∙ Tries to pay him to leave, he won’t accept
∙ Realizes that it isn’t about money for Bartleby
∙ Divine right
o P. 65—narrator
§ Mellville tries to draw attention to fact that there is something outside, through
capitalism, monetary gain, property rights we have lost the understanding on how
to treat one another
o Property
∙ Food factoring into story/importance in story
o Characters constantly eating ginger nuts, Turkey and Nippers send Ginger Nut to go out and buy ginger
nuts, Bartleby also eats ginger nuts
∙ P. 62
o “At first Bartleby did a great quantity of writing...he use to gorge himself on my documents, there was no
pause on my documents”
∙ Symbolism about hungry to work
∙ Digestion problems—Nippers
∙ Narrator never sees Bartleby eat
∙ After Bartleby goes into prison he refuses to eat, goes into fast
∙ Narrator always going for dinner—gets him out of having discussion or confrontation with Bartleby
∙ Seeks easy way out
∙ Food is seen as a symbol for life January 28th 01/16/2013
∙ Bartleby eventually refuses to take, in end he dies
∙ By end of text Bartleby gives up his life so narrator can live
o He is a Crist like figure
o P. 72—second to last line, “on errands of life, these letters speed to death”
o Bartleby goes to prison, fasts, through his act of resistance he is meek, never angry, when removed he
goes wherever it is he has been placed
o Discussions all the way through text about Christianity
∙ Make apparent when narrator is one his way to church to hear a sermon
∙ Entire text about learning how to live with each other; about empathy, caring for another human being
o Moments in text narrator stops and pauses before he gets angry
∙ Dead letters office
o When letter has no place to be sent to/doesn’t reach destination, they are all sent here and eventually
get burned
o Stagnant sitting in one spot
∙ Throughout entire first half, but in corner in office, called hermitage
∙ Bartleby looks at dead wall
∙ Lack of understanding ones nature, lack of understanding human nature
∙ Allusions to death and dying
o Bartleby called ghost like,
∙ P. 56 “Like a very ghost”
∙ P. 58, “cadaverously gentlemanly”
∙ P. 60—bottom, called cadaver
o Allusion to death repeated throughout text January 28th 01/16/2013
∙ P. 72—“Bartleby, humanity”
o Placed together at end of novel
∙ Bartleby reminds narrator about humanity and importance of something outside of money
∙ By end of text is there a change in the narrator in terms of is money still more important to him?
∙ Maybe there is an enlightenment, and this is why the story is being told, to enlighten the reader
∙ Narrator has changed, when he buys Turkey a coat it is for his own personal gain—about keeping up with
appearance
o But at end, pays to feed Bartleby, not for his own gain, for Bartleby
§ Moves outside of own personal gain
February 1, 2013 “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”
Stephen Crane
Parody: Taking on another genre or style with exaggeration—using comedy, ridiculous—or to trivialize the
‘importance’ of something by making fun of it
∙ Takes something that is high or culturally important to point out the flaws, through the use of
ridiculousness of comedy
∙ Draws attention to drawbacks of urban society within text
o Crane—nicknamed New York City ‘Gotham’
Summary of Text:
∙ Sheriff of town goes off, marries someone and comes back worrying about what the populous is going to
think
∙ Goes to the East for bride, comes back to the West
o Expansion of the West is occurring during this time January 28th 01/16/2013
o West always has sheriff, gun slinger, evil villain
o East has already been civilized, cultivated
o Movement and joining of east and west—people moving from the east to the west are civilizing the west
∙ Same sense of movement as in Dracula—importance of train to allow quicker movement from one place
to another
∙ Also joined two sides of the country together, making it more accessible
∙ Sense of movement that is so quick hard to see landscape, almost blurring by is—opening paragraph of
text
∙ P. 103—first two paragraphs
o Instead of young attractive couple madly in love; author states more of an unattractive bride, and
nervous husband boarding train
o Setting gender roles
o Man dressed in new proper black clothes—uncomfortable in his clothes, she is also uncomfortable in
her clothes—dress has steel buttons (lower class)
∙ Trying to be civilized like east, but more rough like west
∙ Everyone is making fun of them—even the porter
∙ Significance of porter; negro porter making fun of two white people
o Porter would be of a lower class then the white people
o Porter has better manners than they do, they enter dining cart and are still being made fun of
o Porter walks them to their seats; shows west still needs to be refined
o Worried about money
∙ Charge a dollar for lunch or dinner—“well that’s to much for us”
o Class
∙ West needs to be refined
∙ P. 104—shows the negro waiters in glowing white suits—waiters dressed better than poor bride and
groom January 28th 01/16/2013
o After dinner return to their couch, feel a sense of escape/relief after leaving dinner
∙ No more judgment from those around them, away from prying eyes
Yellow Sky: City/town; jack sheriff in town—holds a position of importance/author
∙ Jack is worried about bringing home a bride
o He is seeking approval for bringing home bride
∙ Significance of yellow
o Word cowardice
∙ Afraid of reaction of people in his town
o He is a yellow belly
∙ He is uncomfortable in his clothes, in his decision
∙ P. 106—top “a sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds and developed a finer tenderness”
o Bride and groom understand each other, brings them closer together
∙ Greater binding of east and west—opening up
∙ He tells her he is worried about Yellow Sky
∙ Bride and groom scurry into town and hurry out to try and not get noticed
o Little confidence—hiding “slunk, and fled”
∙ Desperately don’t want to be seen—possibly drawing more attention by doing thing
o Porter laughs at them as they rush away from train station
∙ Embarrassment is recognized
∙ Weary Gentleman Saloon
o Important because it tells us that he is the sheriff, he is important January 28th 01/16/2013
∙ Different view of him, first part of text doesn’t have air of importance or authority
o Introduced to “Scratchy Wilson”—evil villain
∙ Described as a drunk, ex­bandit, scruffy looking, last of the gun slingers
∙ Last of the old order of the West—by end he gives up and doesn’t want to fight
o Bride unarms him in a sense, gun slinging in west has to shift and change
§ More people beginning to move into west and own property—OWNERSHIP and PROPERTY RIGHTS
∙ P. 107—properly introduced to Jack Porter;
o He is an authoritative figure, important to town to keep town order
∙ P. 107—Scratchy Wilson described as “a wonder with a gun”
o Section 3
∙ Allusion to race and money—“a man in a maroon coloured shit, to be worn as decoration…made by
Jewish women”
∙ Important to note who made the shirt because it is seen as a costume to be worn by people in the west
∙ Different perceptions
o Jack on train is insecure, but in own town he is depicted as a hero
o Drummer boy—outsider giving us a perspective of what it looks like in the west
∙ Haziest alluring—perspective and how we see
∙ P. 108—
o Juxtaposing West and East
∙ Drawing attention to dust bowl of sand and snow
o 2 paragraph (?)
∙ “Walked with the creeping movement of the midnight cat”—animalistic traits January 28th 01/16/2013
∙ Dracula was described as being lion­like
∙ Being villainized, being made more beast­like so we can think of him as ‘other’
∙ Man terrorizing dog—“he is no better than a dog”
o Section 4
∙ Scratchy is like a snake—animalistic traits drawn towards him
∙ He is egging on the sheriff ready to fight, disbelief that the sheriff doesn’t have a gun
o “There ain’t a man in Texas that’s never seen you with a gun, don’t take me for no kid”
§ Mentality that everyone is to have a gun
o Porter unarms Scratchy, authoritative figure
§ Scratchy confused by marriage, slunks away in end—defeated
o Marriage of East and West importance for civilization
§ Combination brings together both sides of the country, brings civilization, gun slinger backs down
§ Marriage brings about a different type of responsibility
∙ Phases out old west ways
Parody Within Text:
∙ Crane is using irony throughout the text to point to the ridiculousness of something else
The Rocking Horse Winner ­ D.H. Lawrence
What is this story about?
• Keeping up appearances
• Changing the luck of the family January 28th 01/16/2013
• The son (Paul) dies at end of story, leaving £80, 000 to the mother
• This is a story about class and class structure
• It is allegorical ­ referring specifically to class even though this is never stated
explicitly
• This could also be a story about love
Definitions
• Irony: to hide or disclose the truth
• In the context of The Rocking Horse Winner, is the truth about Paul’s betting hidden or
disclosed?
• Disclosed ­ Mother finds out about the betting at the end of the story
• “‘I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I’m
absolutely sure ­ oh absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!’
! ‘No, you never did,’ said his mother.” (p. 126)
The Mother
• How is the mother depicted?
• Described as a woman who is not very loving, obsessed with material things/
money
• The mother is obsessed with money, and the children notice this
• For example, “And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase:
There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could
hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud.” (p. 116) January 28th 01/16/2013
• The house always whispers this
• Uncaring
• Blames her husband for their lack of success ­ “She married for love, and the love
turned to dust” (p. 115)
Oedipal/Oedipus Complex
• Freud theorized that a son is in love with his mother and wants to take care of her. In
other words, a son wants to usurp his father and take his father’s place ­ there is
tension between a father and son
• This is present in The Rocking Horse Winner because Paul’s father is absent
throughout the majority of the story, and it seems as though Paul wants to take his
place. This is seen at the end of the story when Paul becomes the provider for his
mother (leaving her £80, 000)
ENGL 1410 Week 5
Visual Representation of Oedipal/Oedipus Complex
Paul
• Starts to make money by gambling (betting on horse races)
• First horse he bets on is named Daffodil
• The daffodil is a symbol of unrequited love, is part of the narcissist family, makes
one think of vanity
• Paul’s mother is vain
• His mother wants the winnings that Paul makes in a lump sum, refuses to January 28th 01/16/2013
take it in installments
• Not even content with the first £5, 000
• Is cold and unfeeling (represents capitalist society)
The Uncanny
• Recall: the uncanny is when something familiar becomes unfamiliar
• The rocking horse is representative of the uncanny
• Paul’s eyes are described as “uncanny”
• “his eyes were really uncanny” (p. 124)
• It is at this point in the story that the mother begins to worry about Paul
• “His mother had sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about him” (p. 124)
Filthy Lucre
• Filthy Lucre: money gained in a dishonest or dishonourable way
• It can be said that the money Paul won was filthy lucre (dirty money)
• The money was gained at the expense of Paul’s health
! ! “And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother’s voice saying to
! ! her: ‘My God, Hester, you’re eighty­odd thousand to the good, and a poor
! ! devil of a son bad. But, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he
! ! rides his rocking horse to find a winner.’” (p. 126)
• It is not just the horse, but also money that is Paul’s undoing
ENGL 1410 Week 5
Father January 28th 01/16/2013
Son (Paul) Mother
(Tension between father and son, son
wants role of the father)
Son in love with mother
End of the Story
• It is interesting to note that at the end of the story, after Paul has just passed away, the
mother still hears her brother say that she is £80, 000 richer. It can be argued that a
mother who truly cares more for her child than money would not have heard/
processed someone telling her that she had just gained £80, 000
February 6, 2013 The Demon Lover
Elizabeth Bowens (1941) WWI
∙ Introduction to passport
∙ Devastation
o Home war (in Europe), civilian casualties
o Naval war—technology, mustard gas
∙ Modern warfare
o More casualties than EVER before
∙ Sense of lack of identity
o 1919­1939 January 28th 01/16/2013
§ Increase in tension and anxiety
§ No real end to WWI
∙ Treaty of Versailles 1919
o Everything was blamed on Germany
§ Increased debt in Germany and trying to rebuild the country
Demon Lover: (Modern Era)
∙ Allegory of war
o War is vengeful, vengeful lover
∙ Ambiguous open ended narrative
∙ Super natural quality
o Gaps in narrative, you have to fill in the missing pieces
st
∙ 1 two paragraphs
o Introduce to main character
o Sense of foreshadowing
∙ Foreboding language
o Used to create anxiety and tension in rest of story
§ Ex. unfamiliar/unfamiliarity; she is feeling unfamiliar in/on her own streets in Europe
§ “Dead air came out”
∙ Feeling of suffocation
∙ Stagnant air from house—no one has lived there January 28th 01/16/2013
o Foreshadow of ending
§ “Even the door which has worked”
∙ Supernatural, she is uncomfortable, uneasy and unfamiliar in her own house
∙ “Staircase window has been boarded up”
o Personification occurring
o Perhaps she is loosing her identity because she is no long part of his space
∙ Former ‘life’
o What she once knew is gone and cannot be returned to
§ ‘Bruises and claw marks’—personification
∙ P.160—top sentence
o Had to leave city because bombing is starting to happen in London
o Upper middle class; have 2 homes (one in the city, and one in the country)
∙ P. 160—bottom paragraph
o Sense of normality of home life
§ Now completely ruptured by coming of the war again
∙ P. 159—end of paragraph
o Sense of death, stagnant life, decay
§ Everyday objects now seem strange
o Care taker is useless
§ Gone on a holiday
∙ Takes holiday during time of war January 28th 01/16/2013
o P. 160
§ Neglecting house
§ Finds the letter
∙ Initial thought, doesn’t know where it comes from
∙ Doesn’t want to read it—FOREWARNING
∙ Letter to draw attention to lover
∙ P. 161—important to remember WWI because:
o Her fiancé who dies in the war represents it
§ She can’t identify him, can’t remember his face
§ Potentially represents all the men who died in the war and become faceless/anonymous
o She describes him as emotionless and cold
§ He is severe; he leaves a mark on her hand before he leaves (imprint of his brass buttons)
∙ Sinisterness around him, going to be painful regardless
o War is cold, calculating, people become faceless
§ Lover is an allusion to war
∙ Behaviour when fiancé announced missing and presumed dead
o Mother and sister didn’t like him to being with, didn’t think she should make promise of marriage
o She behaved ‘well’ when told the news
§ Perhaps she is considered to be standing out of the crowd
∙ Left mark of soldiers button marks hand
∙ Possible sense of relief that she doesn’t have to marry him January 28th 01/16/2013
o Letter tells her she has broken her promise to him
§ Lover reminds her through the letter that he is back and ready to fight
∙ Normality of life
∙ P. 162—Top
o Made to confront reality of war
o Mystery, paranoia, anxiety, erasure of life between wars
§ Space of temporary, between WWI and publishing of book
∙ Solidified by more war
∙ She returns to house in town from the house in the country
o Was sent to get some clothing so her family can resume their life in the country
∙ She was the keystone of family life
o Nervous, worried something bad will happen, but she is trying to figure out how to get out of house
§ Has a feeling something bad will happen
∙ ‘Keep Calm and Carry On”
o Slogan in London during wartime bombings
∙ She wants to get to the taxi to get to safety
o Dead lover is driving the taxi—IRONIC TWIST
o Driven off the disappear
§ Is she really gone or is it her anxiety?
∙ Is the narrator reliable?
o Story told from her point of view January 28th 01/16/2013
§ Disappearance may be just a psychotic break
§ Since it is seen through her eyes, we might just be caught up in her anxiety
∙ Tries to go home to safety
o Dead lover driving the taxi may represent the inability to escape the past
§ Possible punishment for forgetting and breaking promise made to her lover
∙ Allegory or war
o If we forget, we are doomed
§ History will repeat it self, we need to learn from out mistakes
§ Forget WWI, and WWII started
§ Cyclical repetition of war and violence
∙ You cannot escape war
o Driven into war, no choice
o By trying to ignore it we are confronted with it
∙ Confronted with war and violence and can no longer walk away from it
ENG – The swimmer, John Cheever
Modernism: a self reflection which explores the subject, setting is always realistic, latest things
Post modernism: something we cant fix, EMPLOYS: irony, playfulness, lack humor, intertexuality
(referencing other texts), metafiction(not real)
The swimmer is a post modern text
Post modernism starts around the 1960s, and 1950s on ward
Neddy Merrill ­ The protagonist, who decides to go home from his friends’ house by swimming through
all the pools in his neighborhood. Neddy and his wife, Lucinda, enjoy a high social standing in their affluent
neighborhood. As he swims home, he loses his strength, and his friends begin saying things that suggest
that a great deal of time has gone by. When he arrives home, he finds his house empty. January 28th 01/16/2013
1. A journey – we learn he’s a partyer, youthful, promiscuous, good sense of humor,
prankster, materialist (he wealthy, lives in a wealthy area where everyone has pools– he
crosses into public pool space and is not welcome)
2. Unclearness of his memory becomes more often
3. He questions himself because he drank too much
4. Memory functions
5. Towards the end of the story he no longer has special privileges
6. Private pools to public pools to private pools again
7. Neddy is no longer allowed in other peoples homes – not welcome in the society he held
so dear
By the very end of the story is a revelation – there’s realization that things aren’t what
neddy thinks they are – bleak reality ­ steps down in class, wealth has dissipated ­
possibly a critique of the American dream (any hard working man can make it, or gain
fame)
ENG ­ Feb 13 th
• Exam based on a close reading passage
• Identify where the short story comes from
• Contextualize where it comes from in that story
• Choice of short story
Margery Kempe
• Introduction deals with setting up the person that she is
• She travels
• She becomes holy, yet an outcast
• Margery Kempe ­ The narrator of the Book, which is Kempe’s autobiography. Margery begins her
story when she is a young wife suffering a post­partum breakdown. She then tells of her first mystical
visions of Jesus and the ways her life changed afterward. Margery has an eventful life, full of travel,
controversy, and confrontation. She travels across England, as well as to Jerusalem, Rome, Spain, and
Germany—extraordinary for a middle­class woman of her time.
• After she loses her child she loses her wits January 28th 01/16/2013
• Married with 14 children, but becomes a nun who cries all the time and asks forgiveness
• Has conversations with jesus and mary – conversations become suspect when she announces them
publicly
• Strong women who will stand up for her rights – goes off without her husbands consent on her
pilgrimage
• She has to go to a male scribe to write out her story
• She goes and prays then a priest can read what she said because she prayed he could
• She has a nervous break down after her child
• Section three she gives up sex
• No longer eats on Fridays Poetry 01/16/2013
Wednesday February 27
Sonnets
Petrarchan Sonnet : A sonnet that is personal, and all about love.
Shakespearian Sonnet: Beauty and representation turned upside down
Italian Love sonnet: Comprised of Petrarchan, in terms its subject matter but its structured different. Rhythm
and Meter
⇒ Metonymy: any object that replaces another object
⇒ Alliteration: When two or more words start with a continent sound – dr.seuss
⇒ Assonance: When two words make the same sound, mat, hat, cat
⇒ Allusion: a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or a representation of, people, places,
events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication.
⇒ Enjambment: when one line runs onto the next line without punctuation
Meter rhyme/ scheme
Ideas
Situation
Language
Metrics
Meter: Based on the sound, and the way we read a poem. Looking at/for a pattern
Iambic pentameter: consists of 5 feet, has stressed and unstressed syllables in meter, structure of poem
consists of 3 sestets and a couplet.
Thursday March 1 ­ Sonnet 18, and Donne’s “The Flea” Poetry 01/16/2013
• The speaker tells his beloved to look at the flea before them and to note “how little” is that thing that she
denies him. For the flea, he says, has sucked first his blood, then her blood, so that now, inside the flea,
they are mingled; and that mingling cannot be called “sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead.” The flea
has joined them together in a way that, “alas, is more than we would do.”
• As his beloved moves to kill the flea, the speaker stays her hand, asking her to spare the three lives in
the flea: his life, her life, and the flea’s own life. In the flea, he says, where their blood is mingled, they
are almost married—no, more than married—and the flea is their marriage bed and marriage temple
mixed into one. Though their parents grudge their romance and though she will not make love to him,
they are nevertheless united and cloistered in the living walls of the flea. She is apt to kill him, he says,
but he asks that she not kill herself by killing the flea that contains her blood; he says that to kill the flea
would be sacrilege, “three sins in killing three.”
• “Cruel and sudden,” the speaker calls his lover, who has now killed the flea, “purpling” her fingernail
with the “blood of innocence.” The speaker asks his lover what the flea’s sin was, other than having
sucked from each of them a drop of blood. He says that his lover replies that neither of them is less
noble for having killed the flea. It is true, he says, and it is this very fact that proves that her fears are
false: If she were to sleep with him (“yield to me”), she would lose no more honor than she lost when
she killed the flea.
• Has to do with living beyond this time
• Three stanzas
• Nine lines
• Hyperbole
• Metaphors
• Imagery
• Persuasion
• Temperate (line 2) – healed, calm, peaceful
(line 5) Line of heaven shines – heaven, nature
•
• Beauty of everything will fade, natures changing­ natural change taking place
• (line 12) – metaphor, illusion, talking about binding these lines together eternally
DONNE
• Flea is a metaphor for sex
John Donne 1572­ 1631
• Protestant
• MP in 1601
• Married Anne More (father Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower) – 12 children
• 1610 renounces catholic ties Poetry 01/16/2013
• 1615 orders into the church becomes royal chaplain
• 1616 reader in divinity
METAPHOR
Figure of speech
⇒
⇒ Related to rhetorical figures of speech
⇒ Compares tewo objects without using like or as
HYPERBOLE
⇒ Extravagant exaggeration
⇒ Exaggerated description of statement
⇒ You’ve grown like a bean sprout
Three stanzas
1. “hey I want to sleep with you, the flea has already mixed our blood, so lets just do it” – trying to seduce
her – heavy religious connotations – “last then more we do” – regret because she turned him down – he
feels denied – hes not given what the flea gets
2. “the flea is you and I” – since society tells us, we need to be properly married –
th
March 4 ­ Jonathan Swift: “A Modest Proposal”
• Political Satire “An attack on or critism of any stupidity or vice in the form of scathing humor, or a
critique of what the author sees as dangerous religious, political, moral, or social standards.”
SATIRE
• Satire can reflect society. Satire draws the attention to faults depicting ridiculous behavior Poetry 01/16/2013
• Formal Satire: involves a direct, first­person­address, either to the audience or to a listener mentioned
within the work. An example of formal satire is Alexander Popes moral essays
• Indirect Satire employs the form of a fictional narrative, such as Byrons Don Juan or Swifts Gullivers
Traveks
• Ridicule, irony
JOHNATHAN SWIFT (1667­ 1745)
• Irish
• Satirist
• Distinguished as a political pamphleteer
• Wrote sermons & Tracts: Backgrounds to a “Modest Proposal”
• Against Irish laws that were unfair
• Irish had no political access, in a modest proposal he is speaking out against it
Irish are degraded
•
A MODEST PROPOSAL